Sunday, March 31, 2013

Page X20 of the 1981 D&D Expert rules includes a section titled "Traveling by Air", which includes this neat section rating who can ride what by hit dice. For example, human-sized characters can ride (or be carried off by) all the canonical BX dragons because all those winged lizards have at least 6 hit dice, the minimum required to lift a human. My favorite part is that flying creatures rated from 3 to 5 hit dice can carry halfling-sized riders. (Pegasi and hippogriffs fall in this hit die range, but are specifically granted an exception allowing them to carry bigger folk.)

So I thought I'd look through the BX monster sections to see what sort of flying monsters a band of pint-sized aerial adventurers could ride. Here's what I found:

gargoyle - a mount immune to normal weapons will probably get you into more trouble than you wantharpy - might require ear plugs or larynx removallizard, draco - goblins on dragon lizards sounds pretty coolcockatrice - illogical, unfeasible but imagine a halfling sheriff enforcing law from the back of one of thesehawk, giant - sounds coolpteranodon - maybe you'd think a dinosaur with a 50' wingspan could carry a fullsized human, but with only 5 hit dice that isn't the case, still I'm imagining cave halfings on these babies and that sounds coolwraith - If you see a halfling wearing a necro-harness and riding the back of a wraith, run. Just run.

The Erol Otus illo at the top of the post is from the page with the Travelling by Air rules. I've often wondered about that hippogriff-rider. Is that a cyclops with a ponytail wearing a crown? And the woman on the flying carpet looks like she has horns on her head, which contributed to my theory that maybe elves or some elves or elf-women or at least some elf women had horns. See also this Bill Willingham piece from the inside cover:

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Eventually this will be a big ol' chart (maybe d20) that newly minted clerics roll on.

Celestial Sects

1.

SECT NAME:

The Crimson Arbitrators

GOD:

Arishem the Judge, He Who Judges

SYMBOL:

see below

GARB:

red robes, white belt/girdle/sash, ridiculous cylindrical hat

SPECIAL RULES:

no holy symbol required, instead each 1st level cleric receives a small runic tattoo with special white ink on their right thumb which serves as their holy symbol. Upon advancing a level the cleric must get the new tatoo expanded. By third level the thumb and part of the palm are covered, by ninth the hand and forearm.

OTHER STUFF:

Often called upon to settle disputes.

2.

SECT NAME:

Order of the Seventh Eye

GOD:

Eson the Search, Lord of the Seventh Eye

SYMBOL:

hand with eye in palm

GARB:

robes of green and one other color, typical dark red, brown or purple; clerics of this order paint their faces with 2 additional sets of eyes, kinda like this:

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Howdy! Back in April of last year I wrote a weird thing about a science fantasy D&D world I called Sarpedon. I've decided to try fleshing it out a bit.

Five You Need to Know About Sarpedon

1. Sarpedon is a gas giant system. A huge ringed planet looms in the sky. Technically the world that the adventures happen on is Sarpedon E, the gas giant being Sarpedon Prime. However, in daily conversations its clear to most people whether you are talking about the Sarpedon in the sky or the Sarpedon under your feet, so most folks don’t specify.

2. Jack Kirby’s Celestials are the gods of the setting. These armored space giants are just as silent and enigmatic as in Kirby’s original vision, so that the various beliefs of the sects and temples on Sarpedon are based upon what people think about the Celestials. The gods are real. The divine power of clerics seems to be based upon them somehow. But they don’t hand out cosmic truths or give commands.

3. It gets pretty hot on Sarpedon. People dress more like Frazetta’s Barsoom than most Middle Earthy fantasy worlds. I'm still working on a good simple rule for overheating while wearing heavy armor that uses one's Con score but isn't a complete kick in the pants.

4. There are two strains of humanity on Sarpedon, with their own histories and cultures. The Cyrannians (see below) are descended from Earth people, while the Gandaharians have their own range of skintones (blues being most common, but reds, yellows, greens, greys and stark whites have been seen). The Gandaharians have a genetic predisposition towards total baldness and some have pointed ears, but otherwise they are physically identical to Earth-type humans. Beyond appearance, there are major cultural differences between Cyrannians and Gandaharians. The Gandaharians live in small matriarchal groups. Their technology tends to be more organic.

5. The Cyrannians are descendants from a minor colony so far in the space boonies that the Cylons didn’t know they existed. They never got the evacuation order. New Cyrannus on Sarpedon E is a colony of the original Cyrannians, though contact with the mother world has been lost for centuries. Their culture is more classic D&D faux-medieval pseudo-feudal than the matriarchal tech-organic hippy-ness common to the Gandaharians.

Thursday, March 07, 2013

Hey, gang. Spring break approaches and as a grad student I've got a crapload to do, but I thought I might try to hop on the wagon and start blogging again. I've got some notes for a new campaign that I could flesh out a bit and at least one really stupid D&D rules idea we can talk about.

The thing is, I've been considering switching venues, possibly to tumblr. Would that be a big inconvenience for people? I know that would make commenting a bigger hassle, but honestly I'm not sure if I can resume writing a blog and responding to comments. And something about the interface just sooths me, whereas blogger has always been a mild pain in the ass. I dunno. Please share your opinion.

"Man, is there anything Jeff CAN'T do when it comes to gaming? This guy is like a critical 20 every roll. Jeff can bite the heads offa five game geeks, including their sorry-ass DM, and spit 'em into a large duffel bag ONE AT A TIME!...that's just the kind of messed up bastard he is! You think yer a gamer, punk? Well..do ya? Jeff will depants your weasel-ass right in front of your grandma."